Abstract
Seventy-five percent of total water resources used in the Duero River basin is applied in irrigation for food production. The demand of water in the basin has been magnified in recent years due to the increasing demand for food generated by population growth, generating clandestine extractions of water, principally underground water, which generates an increase in the energy demand for pumping. Which added to the unprecedented extreme weather and climatic conditions, generating frequent droughts that lead those in charge of managing the basin to impose restrictions on irrigators and close irrigation early, generating reductions in crop yields, in an area where irrigation is paramount to maintain rural population and avoid land desertification since rainfall does not achieve crops water requirements.
Within this context, the optimization of the use of irrigation water is essential to guarantee food production, reduce the energy demand and reduce the pressure on the ecosystem. The use of new remote sensing technologies that allow the monitoring of crops at the parcel level are emerging as an alternative for irrigation management in the area, allowing to estimate crop coefficients (Kc) for each plot based on its own characteristics. As an example, we estimate from satellite images the crop coefficients of 143 corn plots in four different irrigation districts (IDs) from 2014 to 2017.
Usually, the IDs perform deficit irrigation in the dry years and either full irrigation or over irrigation in the wet years; but if the estimated Kcs had been used in the plots, up to 19% of the water applied per year would have been saved in some IDs and an average saving of 4.28% in all the plots and years studied would have been achieved, demonstrating that Kc optimization is important tool in water and energy saving in the mediterranian region
Authors
Daniel A. Segovia-Cardozo; Leonor Rodríguez-Sinobas; Sergio Zubelzu
Poster Session 4 (Nexus Pilots), Room 4 - 29th September, 09:15-10:15
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